


aphelion

by breath_e



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Deities, Fairy Tale Elements, M/M, finished just in time for my friends birthday, get fucked, happy but in a sense youre like "NO", it is happy/sad, please look at this i promise you will not be disappointed, rihanna gif, rihanna gif intensifies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-30 15:58:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6430945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breath_e/pseuds/breath_e
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He gave him a Hope, a glimmering Hope, with only one sentence.<br/>He gave him laughter that transcended any sound that raked through him.<br/>He gave him all the planets in their wake to convince him there was something worth being here. </p><p>(With a soft sigh, Dirk leaned his head towards the jaw of his companion, pressing his lips to the accumulating warmth. Words shuffled from his mouth in a breathless mumble, his chest tightening with the thought. It hurt but he wanted nothing less.)</p><p>("Look what we've created.")</p>
            </blockquote>





	aphelion

**Author's Note:**

> a·phe·li·on (a-fe-lee-in)
> 
> noun
> 
> the point in the orbit of a planet, asteroid, or comet at which it is furthest from the sun.
> 
> tw for unreality and body horror.

In the beginning the beginning, there was light, but there were also the cold and desolate places in between them.

 

That's what made the sun so alone.

 

Within the depths of the cosmic sea, the sun would reach out into the nothing and call to the astral beings. But nobody called back. Nobody reached for the sun like he did, nobody moved, nobody smoldered and shone like he did.  Slowly and surely, everything seem to spread apart from him, farther and farther until they were mere dots around him. Up until 1996, humans believed that the universe worked like a rubber ball being tossed upward, what comes up must come down. But that's not it at all. The universe expands and accelerates its production out of nothingness.

 

Slowly and surely, time passed, creeping each second over him with the daunting realization he was alone with nothing to hold onto and nothing to live for, but even he didn't have control of that. How does one born in an empty shell know how long it has until it's death? Foolish.

 

But he couldn't help but hope. Everything must come to an end if it started, and he could remember he had started somehow. Gas seeping from his newly created body, flares creeping from his newly created mind. Since its birth, the universe has been expanding, nonspeaking void fills in the gaps where the fabric tears open, he should know of all people.

 

That cannot go on forever, everything has to break, it has to break, it has to break. He has seen dozens of neighbors turn away, running quicker every second, and eventually leaving him more alone than he already is to rip apart instead. Everything has to break. It has to break. Everything would fall apart and nothing can interact with anything anymore, in a strange, timeless nothingness.

 

There were other possibilities.

 

The sun has spent billions of years feeling mysterious radiation off of himself, but this was much stronger, crawling down into his stomach until all of it rose onto his skin and broke apart in a burst. It didn't hurt. It was fun to say the least, a way to scare the miserable time away. The pent up energy at his core rippling through him for eons to bust through his skin in patches. He saw the heat escape from his dying brethren, twisting into gassy masses that never spoke to the sun either. Sooner or later, that same effect must come to him, for he was just like them.

 

Or perhaps everything will simply slow down with the stretching of the universe nearing the speed of light. The faster you are, the more time elongates, to the sun's dismay. Relativity. He hated this thought. It tunneled into the back of his head, reminding him he might be here forever. Time may distort, but his perception would stay the same, caught in minutes that used to feel like seconds.        

 

The sun took his hands away from the horizon and went quiet.

 

* * *

 

 

Somewhere else, a nothingness sits. In the most literal sense. He held his legs under his body and propped up his chin, his arms changing and molding, ever softly, to whatever his mind captured. A nebula? His fingernails stretched out and melted against existence, one-dimensional, toying with the minds of the sun entities that has the unfortunate pleasure to look his way.

 

They would narrow their eyes in his direction, swearing they saw something move within the darkness beyond. They would call out to him, a gentle or a booming, "is anybody there?" only to have their head split in a headache as the space would twist into directions of the impossible. The nothingness never liked to stay in one place, always in an infinite number at once, pooling but rigid, at the same time. The suns and systems and galaxies would talk to him for sums of time that he knew was an illusion.

 

That is, if they were sentient.

 

They were just suns, after all.

 

Balls of gas that would eventually collapse.

 

They had no conscious.

 

Foolish.

 

Floating through an eternity on a plane of nonexistence was tiring, the nothingness should know. Grim in exterior, the nothingness nonexistent mind was anything but that. There was a human child inside of that mind, a human child that wanted to play, to sing, to dance, and to have a friend with the painful knowledge that they would not be able to comprehend him without their brain exploding.

 

In the most literal sense

.

Among his subdued sorrow, the nothingness had named himself to the sound of a supernova at its birth; Jake. Jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjja-ke. That sound was extraordinarily loud and rolled off the tongue to him, to the child harbored inside in his mind's delight. Jake, the nothingness, did not see himself as nothing, but as everything. After all, he could change at will and unwillingly, into everything he desired.

 

Therefor, Jake decided, I must be hope, for hope is capable of everything and surpasses contemplation. Jake was hope and hope had to stay hopeful, staying a child within an ageless being's substance.  He's probably the only one in existence that doesn't have ten strings attached to all ten fingers.

 

* * *

 

 

"You want to die, huh?" The sound of words echoing through the silence, the sun's eyes shot open violently, and he gasped for air in his suspension. Nothing had sounded more terrifying yet beautiful to him, no vibrations rolling over him, so thrum of a gentle heartbeat containing strained letters. It sounded like a hand being held over a mouth and then spoken, but within a large, barren room. Full of contradictions that confused the sun to the point he though he was still asleep. It sent a bolt of lighting straight to his forehead as he coughed frantically, covering his ears, "You don't have to ans-"

 

 _"Stop fucking talking!"_ The sun hunched over, no longer pondering the lightheaded voice's origin. He instead tightened his eyes, body tensing down to his toes. His head spun with an ache he was not familiar with in this millennium or any of the others he spent in prolonged silence.

 

"Sorry," Jake snickered. The Hope sat around the sun, limbs liquidating into spirals that inspected him from every angle, but his conscious sat in front of the sun, blending into the background with a simple extension into the fourth dimension.

 

Serenity filled the dark spaces Jake once surfed, to finally feel the heartbeat of a corporal being- a corporal being whose pain rippled out in a viscous cry when Jake talked. Jake didn't mind the exposure to the deafening silence, but to hear the particles whirl off the sun's skin was pleasurable and warm. Dust pooled around him like a fossilized treasure, and Jake had just uncovered the first dinosaur.

 

Jake knew he wasn't supposed to be here, on the other side of the universe, where time turned ever faster and everything seemed so still. So still. The clouds never stirred, the edge of the universe never curled his mind when he got too close. Somebody must have been hoping a awful lot.

 

Possibilities hang over the head as if he was a starving weasel, but the pure desire in a thought overcomes, clouding the mind and corrupting the body with time, something the sun seemed to have a plenty.  Jake trickled his chin down and down further until he had a hand, reaching to touch the lukewarm substance of the sun. Just as he thought. The mind had woke up from a very long rest. He took his palm away and set it in his lap, his expanding, oozing body creeping closer and closer until he looked like that of the sun. And then he waited until the sun was ready to talk.

 

Five human eons passed before the sun relaxed, which was nothing at all, for both of the two entities did not age. It seemed like being trapped in an infinite circle to Jake, who stirred closer and closer to the sun as he waited, a deep rumbling rooting from the depths of his throat. Yet, it was also followed in a seizing of the atmosphere and a chilling. Jake opened his mouth to say something, but the sun interrupted abruptly.

 

"So you were just in my head then," His voice was heavy with a sleepy tone, crackling with misuse like wild flames. The sun raised his head and looked around, inhaling through his mouth deeply. He ran his fingers through his hair.

 

Hope's being suddenly sprung up, the space it occupied distorting the image. with trickling water.

 

"No!" Jake lowered his voice with a sharp intake of air on the sun's behalf, "No, I am here, I swear to it. Cross my seven hearts with all seven of my arms," The form that conceived his back bubbled, sprouting seventy bumps from the grid whirring in Jake's head, all of them from a plane of existence perpetually thin, reaching out, pushing outwards towards the sun. It pulsed once before abruptly seeping through the nothing out of a anthropomorphic frame that hardly showed.

 

"I can't see you, so you can't be here," The sun grumbled, uncertainty singeing the edges. Jake laughed.

 

"You couldn't hear them, though, so why did you think they were real," The sun scowled, but Jake tilted his head childishly, "You could concentrate."

 

"No,"

 

"Don’t test me," Jake’s voice was a teasing singsong, echoing as if he were floating above Dirk’s head like a soft wisp of sullen smoke.

 

"Frankly, I don't know a thing you just said."

 

“Har har. I know you did, otherwise you wouldn't bother to respond,” A deep reverberating humming filled the air, branching out, sending waves of goosebumps down Dirk’s body,  “Concentrate for me," Jake's hands trembled, vibrating before assuming their form once more. The sun took a deep breath at that, blinking a few times before growling miserably.

 

"If you were here, you would..." Fading away, Dirk's voice caught with his stillness. Jake became restless, stumbling all nine of his arms forward, one of them straining ever forward until it grabbed hold of the sun's own. It blocked out the golden light streaming from him, but in other places, the glow only strengthened, its beams dissolving extravagantly, tendrils sweeping towards Jake's form, outlining the cheeks, the arms melting back into his spine, and the wide, glassy eyes, molded from the backdrop of the expanse.

 

"Can you feel me?" Feel him. Feel something. Of course the sun felt him, it brushed through him like a gentle paintbrush, sinking into his lungs and releasing instantly. Jake was cold and warm at the same time. Jake's hand was grainy like sand, delicate like it should be floating off into the abyss in millions of pieces, but his hand appeared smooth. The sun wanted to hold it for an eternity. A child, awakened to the new world, takes a breath for the first time. The sun nodded his head, "Finally some cooperation!" Chuckling once more, the celestial light dissipating with Jake's hand falling back.

 

The sun reached out, trying to grab the fingers as they were, but they cascading back into a nothingness before he could touch them.

 

"You wouldn't happen to have a name, would you?" The sun spoke finally, placing his starved hands in his lap, "I am a sun, but what are you?"

 

"I don't think you're a sun per se, however, I am Hope."

 

"That's really fucking cryptic."

 

"No, no! I mean it!" Too loud. The sun covered his hears frantically and hissed, "Gosh, sorry! Sorry," Rubbing the back of his neck, Jake chuckled, "I mean it though. I am Hope, but you can call me Jake."

 

"Jake The Hope doesn't exactly roll of the tongue."

 

"You don't even have a title. Besides, you haven't talked to anyone else, what would you know about rolling off the tongue," Jake's essence began to fan out once more, but he tied it together with might. The deep embarrassment rolling onto Jake from the Sun was prominent. Jake clicked his tongue, satisfied, “Thought so!”

 

"What would you name me?" By this time the sounds around him he usually heard, the shaking of everything, the buzzing of radiation, seemed more annoying than background. After hearing Jake’s melodious tones, Dirk was ever entranced by the symphony Jake poured from his mouth. Everything else was mediocre and rude- how dare the noises even attempt to cover up the flowing streams of harmony.

 

"What would you want to be named?"

 

"Why do you think I asked you?"

 

"Oh, shut up!"

 

"Just answer my question would you?"

 

Intentionally inhaling audibly, the Hope scrunched up his face in thought, "Dirk,"

 

"Thanks for granting me one of the worst names in all of existence."

 

"No, here me out. Or rather, hear yourself," Jake grinned, "It's the sound of your heart. Gives me the heebie jeebies when I think about it," Hesitantly, Jake extending one of his remaining hands out, prodding the sun's chest with a single finger. That send sweeps of tingles into the sun's chest, thudding unevenly, "See? Dr-irk, dr-irk, dr-"

 

"You don't have a heart?" The sun rolled his eyes at Jake's shenanigans despite them twisting his insides and floating, drifting silently, up to the chest.

 

"I don't have a body, moron."

 

"I saw it, though."

 

"Trust me, Dirk," Jake's nostrils flared up, and despite not seeing The Hope, the sun pursed his lips and nodded slowly.

 

The sun decided it would be best to keep this real (imaginary) thing here for now. It would pay for the relentless ambush of time that crushed his neck with the heavy bricks of solitude. Even if Jake was not real, now the sun had a name.

 

His name was Dirk, and there was now a hope he could share for as long as he shall remain delusional.

 

The universe became infinitely less cold and infinitely less lonely.

 

* * *

 

 

A certain gremlin lingered about the eons, covering all Dirk held dear like a thin layer of snow, dusting weakly around all he did, until eventually, without notice, that snow became mounds and he could no longer escape from the chill. Even after all of this time, Jake was distant from him, as if Dirk had been stuck in a fairy tale, and Jake was the unknown narrator. They spoke in quiet whispers, of booming laughter, but still, Dirk could only experience swift glimpses of The Hope before he molded back into the background like all myths eventually do.

 

"You're not like other suns, you know," Jake spoke after a period of unnerving silence, "You're orange and you're not so round. The only one's I've seen are red or yellow or black or brown," Jake jabbed on, "or blue or white or red or pink."

 

"You said red twice, imbecile."

 

"You're shaped so weird," Dirk felt a tingling sensation upon his side and knew automatically Jake had tried to kick him, "I tried to do my best to mimic it. I kind of like your hands."

 

"How do you know you've mimicked me if you can't even see yourself?" Dirk rubbed the static away and glared into the space Jake probably was.

 

"How do you know your hands are shaped the same way if you're not looking at them forever."

 

"Why don't you show me if you're so sure about that?"

 

"Don't think I don't like you, but..." Even the nothingness surrounding both of them wavered about when Jake sewed his tongue to his teeth, "I can't," Although, Dirk knew he would keep talking, Jake couldn’t seem to form any words justifying himself. The atmosphere of his very being grew colder by the second, his frame tense with underlining humiliation.

 

"Don't be an idiot, you idiot. Of course you can. You can move but I cannot see you. I know what you are,"

 

"Say it!"

 

"A frequently belittled fucktard. Do this for me."  

 

"Let's not! I came up with a name for-"

 

"Jake. I'll- "

 

"Dirk, come on, you can't want this that bad."

 

"Would I lie to you?"

 

"No! Well- no. No, of course not, I just think-"

 

"God, I should have known that you-" Dirk suppressed a choke as his throat swelled up.

 

Gaseous feeling pools seeped from his eyes in violent streams as he gasped for air against an oceanic wave that pooling through his mouth. It seemed as if something was attacking him, but Jake hadn't said a word, although Dirk could swear he could feel tidal waves crashing against him, numbing his skin, suppressing all of his head that cascading off of him, so it crawled through his cheeks and puffed through his mouth like fire to a dragons.

 

Although it didn't, it curled around the edges of a nothingness there, a nothingness that surrounded his head and blocked his ears, shifted through each individual strand of hair, leaving him to look like a petrified ghost saved from a critical fall just in time. Jake was doing something to him and he hated it.

 

"Sorry! Sorry! It's just me," All of that terror was washed away at Dirk's cost, leaving him sputtering, hair falling down into his face instead of prickling up. Dirk was left confused, bewildered, and above all else, exhausted. Before he could open his mouth to inquire, Jake went on slowly, "I know that you...you... really want to see me huh?" Stagnant laughter filled his form, "With a past like that, I would too I mean-”

 

“What- what the _hell_ was that?”

 

“Then again, I saw you from the beginning, and how many eons has it been..?”

 

“Jake, what did you do to me?”

 

“I'm incredibly selfish, I guess."

 

“Jake!” A siffling thickness surrounded them at that.

 

Jake exhaled, blowing into Dirk's face. Jake was evidently still extremely close. It pricked through Dirk's skin and into his core, right at the chest. Jake did that horrible thing to him, and he was acting so nonchalantly to this.

 

“How do you think I know you wanted to die?” Despite the cordial voice, void of any form of hostility,  Dirk growled, his flames slowly gravitating back into their place. Jake breathed out again, this time in a laugh. "Okay, fine, sorry. I’ll ask next time I kiss you!"

 

“Ask for _what,_ exactly? You’re not answering my questions.What did you..?”

 

“I kissed you!” A kiss. Another foreign word Dirk could not decipher. The features of his face contorted with the thoughts stirring miserably in his head…

 

“When are you going to let me see you, anyway?”

 

“I can’t!” Another bout of stress-consumed giggles followed.

 

"Why _not?_ " Dirk bit violently. The gasp that followed Jake’s lips slowly dissipated into stutters.

 

"I can't! Sorry!"

 

_"Why not?"_

 

"Because if I form you, you would only see you!"

 

"...What?"

 

"Ugh, look, dude, this is real thought to describe, and it's really dumb, but uh. You have a unique body, you see."

 

"I have a unique body."

 

"I'll kick the shit out of you. Yes, you have a unique body. I've never seen anything like it, so naturally, I'd only form to you body sense it's the only thing I've seen."

 

"That’s senile."

 

"And what's your bright idea?"

 

"You don’t have to look like me, fuck, if you like my hands so much you could just be a giant hand. All you really have to do if you like the way I am shaped, of all things, is to create yourself from the image of me."

 

"From you? What do you mean?"

 

"You create your own body that looks like mine, but what you want it to look like," The sun sat back onto his hands, eyes lidding softly in an expression that could only mean 'I'm right.'

 

"I..." Jake scowled, "...can't do that."

 

"Yes, you can."

 

"I can't!"

 

"Yes, you can."

 

"And what makes you think that!"

 

"You're here," Dirk’s voice was filled with an exotic tint to it, the color pink ravishing the tongue to dissolve into the air. It was warm. This was not something Dirk spoke with often, glass covering what is usually his monotonous dribble. This was staining the glass with something costly, an entirely new substance that would be worth half of the universe for the feeling it shot through Jake. It didn’t come often, but when it did, Jake relished every moment breathlessly.

 

Jake hesitated before speaking bitterly, "....That's really friggin helpful."

 

"Jake, you are a Hope. Think about it for two damn seconds."

 

"...I..." After consideration, Jake's voice burst into a sudden euphoria, "And what should I look like?"

 

"Whatever you want."

 

"I don't- I can't..." Over time, Dirk had grown to know little about Jake, but he enjoyed it nonetheless. Jake made him laugh. Dirk had laughed for the first time before, yes of course, but that was a cry of hysterics. When you laugh with another, it's like desperately grasping onto your soul's hand and never, ever letting go. A taste so sweet it reeks down the throat and bubbles with an agony that only the luckiest and unluckiest can truly withstand. Joy crumbles and then aches to become anew.

 

The same feeling lingered about his chest when Jake showed up for the first time.

 

The solidity started at his left eye. A dark circle, consuming, dilated outward and Dirk bounded backward before it surrounded a blissful green. That changed, however, that green was serene, calming, and dull, swirling with Dirk's dusty glow. And then it sprung to life as the creeping color of his face bounded and shaped diagonally towards his ear. The green, instead of a flat calmed storm, burst into a million other colors, but maintained as vibrant as a jungle leaf and three times as electrifying. They switched into yellows and blues that glowed like the suns he described.

 

Beyond was grey skin, but not monotonous. It fluctuated, scar tissue or haphazard cleaning of dust off an old shelf, into darker or lighter shades, crawling deep into soft skin in caverns. They were impact sights of meteors. Dirk never thought they were this big in comparison to the marvelous expanse he thought so terribly of, but Jake was never the same size, always stretching or curving... the craters faded into the color of caramel candy.

 

A taste so sweet it reeks down the throat and bubbles with an agony that only the luckiest and unluckiest can truly withstand.

 

Jake's face contorted with confusion as tufts sprouted from his head, "This isn't right, it doesn’t look. Right."

 

"No, no it's. It's really good. Keep going," Dirk grumbled, Jake only nodded his head slowly, looking upon himself as his form jerkily gained shape.

 

"This is not…." He laughed, more crevasses forming on his seemingly cracked-but-smooth skin. It contained river bed clay, loose and dry, but that could have easily been a trick of the eye. His skin also contained glassy, soft particles that told he was made of porcelain. It all faded away into the captivating golden brown skin at his arms and stomach, "This is honestly bonkers," He chuckled bitterly once more.

 

Taking a deep breath, the same demons called in Dirk's core, but he smothered them out with his heat and stood up, aversion yelling at him almost as loud as the cruel beings within him. He clenched his fists, but they released as soon as Jake's mouth gasped open, those light lips and light eyes.

 

Mouth agape, a short breath leaking out, Dirk suppressed a full-body shudder at what stood before him- a beautiful lunar creature, years of watching the universe age and create sparking at the eyes and dripping down the body. A body. A body Dirk could touch and hold and talk to, he could finally read the face of something, grasp onto the arms with delight. And he found himself thrown into Jake. He felt real. Really real. Jake awkwardly fumbled backwards, but did the same to Dirk, hands grasping onto Dirk's shoulders and holding him close. And that was undoubtedly real.

 

A real body.

 

The universe can fuck off.

 

* * *

 

 

Having a body kept all of his expression bottled up, no longer could he stretch out infinitely into the horizon when rage boiled within him or surround dwarf planets when he became curious, Jake wouldn't just let that happen. Endless conversations with Dirk, or perhaps even the most bewitching hush, cursed by the rhythmic thrumming in Jake's new chest, he found himself expressing through physical touch. The Hope had never felt anything quite like the vibrations tingling through him, solidity. He could very well melt back into the state he once was, but the everlasting, craving need to be something to Dirk pulled him away.

 

Although, every now and again, there were glitches in his reality. Dirk saw things rigid, never changing and constant, but Jake perceived in seven dimensions, in seven billion voices, and as a caring father to his creation.

 

Sometimes Dirk would close his eyes for rest, the very radiation seeping from him, seemingly stagnant, but Jake would watch him adoringly, sitting on his stomach, feeling the universe pulse and pull around them. During these times, Jake would pull a hand out to Dirk's hair and feel the waves of light swarm under his fingers, feel the very sensation of warmth. Dirk allowed him to now, growing more and more used to Jake as the eons swept by, so, so much quickly now that they were no longer alone.

 

One day Jake wasn't too connected to his body.

 

_"Can I..."_

 

 _"Can you what?"  Dirk mumbled groggily, sitting up. He looked to Jake, taken back by how his body faded in and out of security, colors molding from his spine into the horizon like a coat of paint. He stayed quiet. This had happened before. Jake pointed to the spiral spiral glowing through Dirk's chest. There, at the center of the chest was a small sphere, brighter than the curls that creeped off of his body in bursts. Brighter than anything._ _Jake's knees were pulled up to his chest and his hands were wrapped around them, head resting behind them in thought._

 

_"Can I touch it?" His voice lacked it's spark. Idly looking to him, eyebrows furrowed, Dirk nodded slowly laying back down for the sun. The sun flinched as Jake's hands automatically passed through him, Jake crawling on top of Dirk's body uncomfortably._

 

 

_"Ow."  Jake did not respond._

 

_His hands phasing through him were enough for Dirk's head to swim, watching particles of himself dissolve in air like smoke, but then Jake's fingers folded around Dirk's core as if it were a broken angle's wings or precious gold. Jake ran his thumb across it's surface, feeling the scars left from eons. The core buzzed like an engine, but it nudged against him, its curling light creeping up Jake's arms and up through Dirk's chest, crawling ivy up a misused light post. Some of it sunk into Jake's skin, curving through his body and then smoking from his teeth. Jake laughed bitterly._

 

_"Is this you?" Jake gulped down, "It feels like you."_

 

_"What do you mean?"_

 

_"Well, it's warm."_

 

_"Fascinating."_

 

_"Trust me,"  Gasping suddenly as the pulse skipped, Jake shivered, grabbing onto the core once more._

 

_"This is new to you, right?"_

 

_"I can't believe you just asked that to my face,"  Jake's eyes filled with delight and he shrunk his hands back from Dirk's chest, his form turning opaque, finally contorting back to his original form. Dirk let out a shudder when Jake's fingertips shrank out finally. Jake flopped off of Dirk, spreading his arms open against the infinite plane, "Thank you for trusting me."_

 

_"It was nothing."_

 

Nothing.

 

Right.

 

The experience of grasping onto someone's soul, the meticulous object, the something they made them someone, a hunger arose to repay the dept lost. After pushing himself into Dirk's mind again and again through "kisses," a skill he cursed himself on but continued nonetheless, it was so intimate too be able to knead that very mind within his palms. Although Jake could do whatever, it seems, he could not find an appetite to fulfill the embrace of a soul.

 

Jake rested his forehead against Dirk's shoulder and vice versa as they sat, the only sound the distinguished symphony of Dirk's heart. Jake could feel the memorable sensation tingling across his hands with the warmth once more. He pulled Dirk's head closer to his own chest, arms creeping around his neck.

 

"What do you want?" Jake mumbled, Dirk letting out an impatient snort, albeit not replying. Jake closed his eyes in thought before a small mass appeared above them, glazing over as if it were being molded out of clay. Jake had only noticed the tension that something was near, but he did not pay attention to it, lighting his mind upon his gift. The mass turned rapidly until it was spherical.

 

He did not have the same core as Dirk, Jake declared, that's why his is so significant and powerful. Jake decided to give him a piece of himself then, one he could hold on to, a fragile substance that could be Jake's composition. Tints of grey, like the colors littering Jake's upper body. Lively, hydrated and filled with wonders Dirk would only see on passing comets. 

 

Instead, it bursted into firey licks red heat, scorched, emitting the same amount of heat, but not at all as soft and simultaneously booming as Dirk's felt in his hands. It slowly faded back into the the grey, craters bursting through the surface. He could do better.

 

Jake flicked Dirk's ear, only to be met with an grimace when Dirk pushed away. Jake only pointed upward. The Hope plucked the planet from the sky, thousands of sirens blaring in his ears, as devastating as Dirk's heartbeat. He handed Mercury to the sun.

 

"It will circle you until it burns out." Jake whispered, a face dark with disappointment. He wanted something that would compare to Dirk's center, but the planet was nothing to be proud of. It was lazy, strung together with a swift hope, caught with glue and loose ends that could fall apart when hung on the refrigerator.

 

Dirk lit up, very much literally, as the planet levitated between them, circling around its own center, but also around the sun.

 

Jake pushed his hands into his face with remorse.

 

* * *

 

 

The thoughts whirred like caged birds, frantically picking at Jake's head, clogging his ears and fogging his eyes, forcing a lump into his throat every time he witnessed that grey planet... He tried to give Dirk another one, no doubt, but the surface were filled with such horrific madness. How could he gift that to Dirk?

 

It started an angelic white, pure, a soft atmosphere twirling around it before the surface bubbled and cracked, seeping out brilliant reds of molten dread. It grayed and mimicked the color of scorched skin. Jake's body forced him to cover the hellish planet with thick gasses, yellows twisting veins all throughout, concealing the grotesque sight with colors of alarm. Stay away, they harmonized to Dirk's ears and luckily, he did not investigate.

 

Jake called her Venus to try and convince himself she was still miraculous.

 

Now two planets circled the son, both of them spinning around in Jake's head like a plague. His arms began to heat with such a fury- fury at himself for creating monstrosities, fury at the planets for shaping into said monstrosities.  The aggression of debt weighed down upon his shoulders. Dirk looked over his shoulder at the slouching hope.

 

"Why are you angry?"

 

"How could you tell," The hope replied monotonously, scowling down at his feet.

 

"You're spacing out," That was the truth. It always started at his neck, right above his spine, where his wiry frame crumbled outward into the abyss of space. Jake had been stuck inside his head for a long time, the fabric he held together stretched for miles.

 

"My bad," His voice was hallow.

 

"You never answered my question."

 

"I don't want to share that with you," The last words were growled as he stood up abruptly, knocking the loose material of his back into its place, "Just please go back to your planets."

 

Dirk opened his mouth to protest, but this was peculiar and heightened the senses with fright. Dirk choked on his words. Jake's voice stooped down within his throat instead of piercing the outside with joyous dribble, liquidating and carefree. Dirk sent a short glare Jake's way from confusion before doing as told.     

 

Curling up his fist, Jake promptly uncurled it, the anger transferring into pain that slowly crawled its way from the skull to the stomach, slowly, inevitably. Jake walked around, hoping that heavy sadness would fade into a melodramatic memory, but it pulled him down with every echoing step until he was sitting far away from the sun, farther away than he had been in eons.

 

He stretched out his fingers before him, pushing them through his abdomen. They sank further into his skin before they crunched into the sadness in its whole. It chilled Jake's fingers and they ached with the contact, but he ignored that feeling he grabbed onto the pit. He skimmed his fingers against the cracks. It was the size of Dirk's core but it was so undeniably frigid, it brought a wetness into his eyes. He indented his fingers into his sadness violently before ripping it out of his stomach.

 

It was bigger than Venus, by only slightly. Delicately holding the painful woe within his palm, it ignited. Pools of fire surfaced and filled the cracks as lit up, black rocks reaching into the spiraling snakes of crimsons. It lit up, but it also grew kinder, radiating a faint glow and welcoming itself into Jake's hands. The sphere rumbled and then broke the surface everywhere with the same magma that resonated soundly within the center of the planet.  Shifting it from palm to palm. clouds developed over the breaks, shooting bolts into the rain now pummeling the land frantically. 

 

Impact points of imaginary meteorites sunk into the surface erratically. Yellow streams rushed into the air with every crater, veins crinkling farther and Jake wanted nothing more than to crush it between his hands and watch it change into minuscule grains.  Although the surface did not contain to horrors of Venus, his sorrow was still grotesque. His lip curled with each curl of the slow streams rippling across the surface.

 

By the seconds, the activity grew. The crust rumbled and sprouting thick knives that sunk into Jake as if it needed a way to hurt him now that it was no longer inside of him. The spokes threaded miles, mustering liquid rage through pores at the tips. Volcanoes. Eventually, the trails of needles sprouted from the earth under his fingers and with a sharp shout, the hope dropped the planet.

 

Prodding his hand, Jake held it against his chest, spewing out hushed curses under his breath. He curled it into a tight fist, another wave of pain crawling into his arm. With that, it shook. Jake hadn't dared to look at the damage. He also hadn't realized that Dirk sat behind him until he put a hand on his shoulder.

 

Both gasped in unison, withdrawing from the other.

 

"You're hurt," Dirk breathed out.

 

"I am no such thing," The hope turned back around from the sun, flinching with a glance towards his creation. Is was roughly the same size of Dirk's soul. Was this was made him _him?_

 

Dirk's eyebrows furrowed, "What did you do to yourself?"

 

"I didn't do anything!"

 

"Can I see your hand?"

 

"Absolutely not."

 

"Why are you avoiding my efforts for affection?" 

 

"I don't want them." 

 

"Jake, I just want to help." 

 

"I don't need your help."

 

“Jake…” Dirk’s hands’ glowing intensified, “I really just want to hel-”

 

"I don't need your help!"  Dirk sucked in a breath, "Peas and fucking carrots can you not get a single clue and just get away from me for two seconds? Why are you here? Why did you ever think it was okay to prod me like a fucking vulture. Go away, good god, I thought I made it plenty fucking clear!"  With a hand secured at the chest, Jake shot a glare over his shoulder. A stillness passed over the universe.

 

"You... came to me," Jake didn't say anything, "I wasn't doing anything and then I heard you… right behind me. You went so far away and came back. So, why did you come to me?" Jake shook his head, looking around and indeed seeing a familiar galaxy, millions of light-years away from his path. It was a galaxy he called home.

 

"I didn't want to come back, you know."

 

"I hadn't deducted," Jake's eyes narrowed and Dirk spit out more words when the air tightened, "Well, it must be reoccurring. Like when you first met me. Where you didn't know I even existed however you had materialized anyway."

 

"I highly doubt it's that coincidental."

 

"That's not helping your case," Padding his feet lightly, Dirk sat next to Jake, who had crawled away subconsciously. Luckily, the Hope put up no resistance.

 

"I wanted to give you a gift."

 

"What, another?"

 

"You sound like you're complaining!"

 

"You've already given me two planets."

 

"They're so awful, Dirk, and you're too good to see that! You can’t see that I gave you curses. Mercury is a scorched wasteland and Venus is very literally hell! Those are not gifts, fucking dammit!"

 

"As much as I am aching to rebuttal, that isn't going to get us anywhere. So you were trying to give me another gift. A planet I presume?" The brunette nodded, "And what happened to it?"

 

"It's horrendous. I think it gained a conscious and began the righteous conquest to my doom," Jake's healthy hands reached out cautiously to grasp the planet, "I thought this one could be different."

 

"Why's that?"

 

"I just wished," He twirled it around a finger, "And yet, here we are,” Jake gave a short glance towards his fingers, lips turning sour. He rubbed his forehead, “I need to give up while I can. The next attempt I make at creation will probably become omnipotent.”

 

“Listen, you didn’t do anything wrong,” The Sun pried further to examine the hand.

 

“Stop saying that! Stop, holy fuck,” Baring his teeth, the Hope’s fingers momentarily elongated and thickened at the knuckles, the nails meeting at an infinitely sharp point. They melted in a gooey mass back into their original shape with an exasperated sigh, “You just can’t see it, Dirk. My gifts are equally dreadful. You only see what you want to see.”

 

“I see what I want to see,” An acidic scowl painted onto Dirk’s face.

 

"Wait, no, I-"

 

“I see what I want to see because everything you could ever give me is amazing. The very thought that anything with it’s own conscious could give me something like that is wonderful- don’t you dare tell me about seeing what _I_ want to see,” Lips curled in distaste, eyebrows pinched, eyes like daggers, Dirk found himself in front of Jake, “I spent so long alone, Jake. I don’t think you know what that’s like, being _alone_ without any sense of _purpose_ . You were so perfect _fine_ and _nonchalant_ about everything when you were on your own because you never knew _anything else_ , that’s how you _fucking_ saw things! _I_ ,” he gestured towards his chest, “never had the pleasure to live that life. I heard things from far away and laughter and things so, _so_ far away,” His voice wavered, “I was so alone, Jake. I don’t think you know this or not, but any gifts you, the only thing that kept me from burning out, is so precious, no matter how _terrible_ you think they are, you _idiot_.”

 

Dirk huffed, his shoulders rising up and down, gas curling from his head with a passionate intensity similar to that when he first met Jake. Jake only stared in awe.

 

“So don’t say things like that,” Dirk’s face fell into desperation with his words.The Sun inched closer to The Hope, resting his head against Jake's shoulder. Even with the kind actions, Jake could not muster the strength to look at Dirk after all Jake had done, Jake let out a suppressed breath, shuddering miserably as a silent arm wrapped around him, "You haven't done anything wrong," Dirk murmured a quiet reminder and somewhere in the gloom that Jake held in his hand, he felt the sensation that maybe that was true, like the faint scratching of pencil on paper.  
  
  
Within Jake’s hands, the planet faded into a deep blue.

 

Earth.

 

Third from the sun.

 

* * *

 

( Jake murmured soft whispers of song with the thinning song that echoed through their home, a thick coating of serenity flicking off his tongue with every slurred word. The people of Earth, humans, what they call themselves, have just taken baby steps, broadcasting the their victories to each corner they have conquered. It had been thousands of years, millions, all with Jake and Dirk admiring each development of Jake's sadness. That's what they called it. Jake was deeply sad above all else and created his potential- this new Hope.)

 

(Right now, the Allies had won World War II, America had landed on the moon, and they gazed with pure curiosity as the humans released their tiny shuttle into the night, 1977. The Voyager sang its melancholy melody, Jake pinching it between his fingers and letting it flow out into the solar system, urging it with a serene puff of breath.) 

 

(So much more life Dirk could listen to, his chest hurt with the immense pride. He set his head on Jake's shoulder, seeping in each fragile note of the human tune, so minuscule, but so much more. A new life to populate the empty universe and two deities to rule over and spread the miracle.)

 

(These creatures, the creatures that Jake and Dirk made possible, flew kites, sat next to bonfires, let off fireworks, dressed up, built up to the lengths of their imaginations, protested for the lives and loves of others, worshiped, tried to understand, and they lived. Beautiful tiny lives.)

 

(Their doing.)

 

(With a soft sigh, Dirk leaned his head towards the jaw of his companion, pressing his lips to the accumulating warmth. Words shuffled from his mouth in a breathless mumble, his chest tightening with the thought. It hurt but he wanted nothing less.)

 

("Look what we've created.")

**Author's Note:**

> to my good pal jake! 
> 
> you da bomb. 
> 
> (PLeas eleave your criticisms i am begging you. i just got back into the swing of writing. please,, ,) 
> 
> (also sorry about the typos i just wanna get this posted.)
> 
> (<3)


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